Echo-Foxtrot

by Clare Revell

  Dr. Andrews put the torch down and began to remove the ventilator.

  Lou moved her head and moaned.

  Dr. Andrews said, “Lou, can you hear me? Open your eyes for me.”

  Lou’s eyes flickered open.

  “Good girl.” Dr. Andrews took her hands. “Can you squeeze my fingers for me?”

  Lou did so.

  “Well done.” Dr. Andrews glanced across at a nurse. “Go get Mrs. Benson.”

  “She’s in my quarters,” Jack said. “I’ll stay here with Lou. She’ll need a familiar face.”

  The medic nodded and ran from the room.

  Lou whispered, “It hurts.”

  “I can do something about that.” Dr. Andrews injected something into the cannula. “Give it a few minutes and it should help.”

  Jack took her hand. “Hi,” he said.

  “Jack? Where am I?” Her voice, no louder than a whisper, was croaky.

  “Anderson Air Force Base on Guam.”

  “I thought I dreamt you on the beach.”

  Jack smiled. “No. I’m quite real.”

  “Where’s Mum?”

  “She’ll be here in a minute.” He took the cup and straw from the medic. “Do you want a drink?”

  “Please. My throat hurts.”

  “Just a sip.” He lifted her head and held the cup as she took a mouthful. He laid her gently back on the pillows and put the cup down. Dr. Andrews injected something else into the drip and adjusted it.

  “The others?”

  “They’re here, along with Bill and Di Kirk. Asleep, or they should be. Jim—” Jack beckoned him over. “You can have two minutes, then go to bed.”

  Jim moved to Lou’s side. “Hey…”

  “Jim…”

  “Yeah. I’m here.”

  “Not your fault,” she whispered.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “Lou!” Footsteps ran down the ward.

  Lou turned her head slightly. “Mum.”

  Jim stood back against the wall to keep out of the way. Tears burned his eyes. Thank You, God.

  Nichola gathered her daughter in her arms. “Lou, I thought I’d lost you forever.”

  “I’m sorry, Mum.”

  Nichola finally released Lou from the hug and laid her back down on the pillows. “I am so mad at you,” she said. “It was a stupid, thoughtless, selfish, cruel thing to do. Have you any idea what you put us through?”

  “I didn’t want Jim to go alone.” Lou’s face contorted with pain. “It hurts,” she said. “My leg…”

  “They couldn’t save your leg, love,” Nichola said gently.

  “I never expected it to be fixable.”

  Dr. Andrews came over. “I’ll give you something to make you sleep. That should help.”

  Lou tightened her grip on her mother’s hand. “Don’t go.”

  Nichola gripped her hand tightly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Jack tapped Jim on the shoulder. “You need to get some sleep as well, Jim. You can come and see her again in the morning. Stray again and the doc will carry out her threat.”

  Jim nodded. He was tired enough to sleep without sedation. “OK.”

  8

  Lou slept fitfully, despite the sedative. She woke suddenly and looked at the clock. Half past six. She wondered if it were morning or evening, but figured morning as it was dark outside. The lights were dimmed and she was in a private room now rather than a huge ward. Her mother was gone. Perhaps the nurses had chased her to bed.

  She lifted her head slightly and looked down at her legs.

  She recoiled in shock and a sense of loss enveloped her, crushing her with a weight so heavy, she gasped involuntarily. It was gone. She could feel it, but it was gone.

  A stab of grief plunged deep within her. What would she do now? She’d never walk again. She watched as her dreams vanished into the cloud that was descending over the bed. She could never become a world-famous archaeologist and find Atlantis or El Dorado now.

  God must really hate her.

  She looked out of the window. The sky was beginning to lighten and beyond the glass, the birds started to sing. Tears ran down her cheeks.

  The medic on duty came over to her. “Are you OK?”

  Lou shook her head.

  “Shall I get your mom?”

  Lou shook her head again. “No,” she cried.

  “Are you in pain?”

  “A lot.” She watched as the medic picked up the chart and took it to the desk.

  Lou watched as the sky grew paler. Another dawn she didn’t want to see. The medic came back. “I can’t give you anything for another three hours.”

  “Sounds about right,” she whispered. “Mafuso and Ailsa kept saying that too. All the time.”

  “I’ll speak to Dr. Andrews when she comes on duty at 0700.” The medic went back to the desk.

  Lou wiped her eyes against the onslaught of tears, but it was a losing battle.

  Despite the growing light outside, around Lou it seemed to grow darker. When breakfast came at 0700, she pushed it around the plate, but didn’t eat anything.

  Dr. Andrews came over. “Good morning. How are you?”

  “Not hungry.”

  “Can I get you something else instead? Maybe some toast or some cereal?”

  “No.”

  “The nurse tells me you need some pain meds?”

  “Yeah,” Lou said.

  “I’ll increase the dose slightly, but if you don’t eat, you won’t get better. Are you sure you don’t want this? The others have done nothing but eat since they’ve been here.”

  “Just make sure they have enough. We’re almost out of food again.”

  “We won’t run out. There’s plenty for you as well.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I’ve got one of our trained counselors coming in to see you—”

  “I don’t need a shrink because I’m not hungry,” Lou snapped, interrupting her. “There is nothing to talk about. My life as it was is over. End of story.” She turned away and shut her eyes.

  As the footsteps moved away, she opened her eyes and lay with a fixed stare at the ceiling. She slowly moved her gaze across the tiles, counting the lights. Lots of them.

  Dr. Andrews returned with the morphine. “It’s not a full dose because it’s too early still.” She injected it and looked at Lou. “We’ll get you mobile tomorrow.”

  Lou snorted. “Mobile? I can’t walk, can I?”

  “Wheelchair. We’ll also organize some crutches and see about getting a prosthesis fitted.”

  “A what?”

  “Artificial leg, but one thing at a time. Would you like to sit up a little?”

  “OK.”

  Dr. Andrews picked up a control next to the bed and pressed one of the buttons. Slowly, the bed rose until she was sitting slightly.

  “Thanks,” Lou said.

  “How’s the leg doing?” Dr. Andrews asked.

  “It hurts.”

  “Other than it hurts?”

  Lou turned her head and looked at the doctor. “You mean aside from the fact that my leg isn’t there?” What’s with the obvious questions? She sucked in a deep breath. “Like I said, it hurts. And my toes itch.”

  Dr. Andrews examined the stump. “It’s looking all right. We’ll leave it uncovered today.”

  Lou grimaced. “Can’t you at least hide it so I can’t see it?”

  “Sure we can. Be right back.”

  Lou sighed. Why was everyone being so nice to her when she didn’t deserve it? It’d be best just to push everyone away so they wouldn’t care so much when she died.

  Because that was still going to happen. She knew that. Mafuso said so and no one had told her otherwise.

  Dr. Andrews returned with a leg shield. She placed it over Lou’s legs and arranged the covers so the stump was hidden from view but left uncovered. “How’s that?”

  “Better, thank you.”


  Dr. Andrews smiled. “Your mom will be in soon. I expect the others will be too. Can I get you something to read?”

  “No thanks. I’ll just sit here and look out the window.”

  About an hour later, footsteps echoed across the room. She turned as they came over. “Hi, guys,” she said as Jim, Staci, and Ailsa came over.

  “You look better,” Jim said. “How’re you doing?”

  “Still here,” Lou replied. “So what’s happening then?” She nodded at the figures by the door. “Who are they?”

  “The bloke is Sergeant Peterson and the woman is Staff Sergeant Chaney. They’re our escorts,” Ailsa explained.

  Staci rolled her eyes. “They only gave us a woman so Sergeant Peterson doesn’t have to go where no man has ever gone before…the ladies’ room.”

  Ailsa and Staci sat on the bed and Jim sat in the chair next to it. Lou looked at them. “You have ‘escorts’? Why?”

  Jim grimaced. “General Merrick says they are for our ‘protection’ on the base, unquote. Really I think it’s so we don’t do a runner again.”

  “Who’s General Merrick?”

  “She’s in charge of the base.”

  “So you guys can’t go anywhere without an escort?”

  “No, but then Mum and Dad are here as well.”

  Lou shifted on the bed. “Are they really here? Are they all right?”

  Jim smiled. “They’re fine. There was just no way for them to send a message home after the tsunami and quake. Once they did, we’d already left.”

  Staci nodded. “And they grounded us for like forever.”

  Lou looked thoughtful. “Mum was here. And Jack. He called her Nicky. No one ever does that, ’cept your parents.”

  “She’s been staying at his place since she came out in December, along with Mum and Dad. They’re obviously friends. Friends shorten each other’s names,” Jim said. “Like you call me Jim and I call you Lou. Rather than James and Louisa.”

  “Dad never did. He always called her Nichola.”

  “But then she always called him Robert and never Bob.”

  “True.” She paused. “So what have you guys been up to?”

  Jim pulled the big parcel out from the side of the bed and gave it to Lou. “We did this.”

  Lou opened it. Her picture looked wonderful in its new frame. Far better than she’d ever imagined when she sewed it. “Wow. Thank you.”

  “The girls chose the frame and mount, so if you don’t like it, blame them.”

  “It’s lovely.” She passed it to Ailsa. “Can you wrap it again for me? Then I can give it to Mum. Ta.”

  “We did other stuff too,” Staci told her. “We went clothes shopping and we went to get fast food yesterday. Today we’re going on a tour of the island.”

  “Sounds fun. Today I get to sit up.”

  Ailsa smiled at her. “Would you rather still be on Agrihan? I know I wouldn’t.”

  As tempting as it was to shoot back a sarcastic answer or say yes, Lou just shook her head. Probably best not to upset the others by saying she’d rather not be here.

  “It’s strange having to do what grown-ups want again,” Staci said. “Having done what I wanted for so long.”

  “Not even grown-ups can do what they want all the time,” Jim told her. “All the grown-ups here have to do what General Merrick tells them. She’s only asking of us what she expects from everyone here.”

  “What’s going to happen when you leave here?” Lou asked.

  Jim shrugged. “For the time being, our parents are all staying at Jack’s place in town along with Nichola, but long term, Mum and Dad inherited Aunt Edith’s house, so that’s us sorted. I don’t know where you’ll go. Nichola sold the flat.”

  Lou looked at him, aghast. “She sold it? Why?”

  “You’ll have to ask her that when she comes in later. But like I said, once we’re released from the infirmary, we’ll be moving into Jack’s place until Mum and Dad go back to England.”

  Sergeant Peterson came over to them. “We’d better be going.”

  They said their goodbyes and followed Sergeant Peterson from the room, Staff Sergeant Chaney falling in behind.

  Lou looked at the clock. Another ten minutes and she could have some more morphine. She wondered briefly if they’d give her too much or if she could persuade them to, but she reckoned pigs stood a better chance of flying than she had of doing that. She had an improved view out of the window now she was sitting up. A plane came in and landed and another one took off.

  The medic came over. She chatted as she checked the dosage on the morphine pump and changed one of the bags that constantly dripped into her arm. She had no idea what it was, most likely antibiotics or something. Had Mum told them what she was allergic to? Otherwise, they’d be in for a shock.

  The sun blazed down outside and if she listened carefully, she could still hear the birds over the sounds of the infirmary and the planes. She thanked the nurse before she left and then turned her thoughts to what Jim had said about Mum selling the flat. Why would she do that? How could she do that? It was her home, too. Mum had no right to sell it without consulting her.

  Lou brooded on this and when Mum came to visit her just after 11 AM, her anger spilled over the moment she saw her mother entering the ward. “Why did you do it? How could you sell the flat like that? Where are we meant to live now?”

  9

  “Good morning to you, too, Lou.” The smile on Mum’s face froze and then fell as the full force of Lou’s anger hurtled across the ward at her.

  “It was my home!” Lou huffed. “How could you sell it without telling me?”

  Mum narrowed her eyes. “Let me at least sit down first.”

  Lou waited until her mother had sat next to the bed, and then folded her arms tightly across her chest. Bile rose up her throat and she had to force it back down. Throwing up wouldn’t help any. She needed answers, not sympathy. “Well?”

  “You have no idea what I’ve been through, have you? We were going to sell it anyway.”

  “But you did it without telling me.”

  “You weren’t there, Lou. You ran away. You walked out without a goodbye, on a half-baked rescue plan none of you had thought through properly. I had no idea what to do. I was stuck in a flat full of memories I couldn’t cope with. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. I stayed there as long as I could. I sold it to have money to search for you.”

  Mum paused. “Jack rang me after he met you in Cornwall, but then you vanished again before he could get a message to you. He called again after he ran into you on Grand Turk. I asked him to pay for the boat repairs, and I wired him the money to do so. I wanted to go out there and bring you back, but trying to get a flight was hopeless. Jack and I had a long talk on the phone. That call lasted two hours. He said he’d keep an eye on you while he could, until I could get out there, but you left the day before my plane was due to leave. Jack said the best thing I could do was stay in England. After that he rang me once a week. I was a mess. Jack was a friend when I needed one the most.”

  Lou scowled. “Thought he was mine.”

  Mum continued. “Bill and Di got back to the UK in September and they were just as worried as I was. Never mind traumatized because of what they’d been through. They moved into Edith’s place and I sold the flat. All the furniture went into storage and I moved in with them. Jack called in early December. He’d found the wreck of your boat while flying a routine recon mission. It had been swept clear of the rocks you’d hit and had wound up on the rocks of Pagan—the next island in the chain. They spent days searching it for you. The three of us flew out here a week before Christmas. Jack met us at the airport, and we’ve been staying at his place ever since. We wanted to be here when they found you.”

  Lou looked at the window. “Are you living there now?” she asked icily.

  “Right now, I’m using his quarters here on the base, but yes, I am. We all are.”

  “You can’t jus
t replace Dad like that.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “You’re living in his house, staying in his quarters. What is it like then?”

  Mum glared at her. “Jack is a friend. Nothing more.”

  “Yeah, right,” Lou said rudely. “I didn’t think you Christians did things like that. Living together is a sin, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t you dare question me, Louisa. Bill and Di are staying there too. You ran away, or don’t you remember that?”

  Lou’s eyes stung with tears. “You can’t even be honest with me now, can you? I saw the way he looked at you last night. He fancies you. He shortens your name. And you looked at him the same way. You held his hand.”

  Dr. Andrews came over and took Lou’s wrist to take her pulse and shoved a thermometer in her mouth. She smiled at Mum. “I just need to run a few checks. Can you give me a few minutes? I won’t be long,” she said.

  “That’s OK,” Mum said. “I have to pop out for a sec anyway.” She got up and left the room quickly.

  Lou watched her go. “I haven’t seen her for months and she’s mad at me already,” she muttered around the thermometer.

  Dr. Andrews looked at Lou. “You need to ease up on your mom, young lady. She’s been through a very difficult time these past months. Her friends were missing, presumed killed, and then you three go off on some fantasy adventure to find them. She thought you were dead.”

  Lou snorted derisively. “She sure got over it quick. Moved in with someone I thought was a friend.”

  “If you mean Colonel Fitzgerald, you’re reading the situation wrong. He’s a gentleman and a good friend. He would never do anything to hurt your mom. You need to listen to what she has to say, rather than yelling. That isn’t going to do your blood pressure any good,” Dr. Andrews said. She put the thermometer away and pulled back the covers to check Lou’s leg.

  “Aren’t I too young to have to worry about that?”

  “Keep the yelling up and you’ll be back in surgery quicker than you can count to five,” Dr. Andrews said firmly.

  Mum came back in. Her face was blotchy, as if she’d been crying.

  Dr. Andrews smiled and replaced the covers. “All done here. It’s looking much better.”

  “That’s good.” Mum nodded as she sat down by Lou’s bed again.